A request has been asked to confirm a match I am unsure of because full birthdates on both are different!

Question

James Laughlin Laughlin-1464 and Laughlin-181

The date of birth is uncertain as I see it. The father with the birth record is not the name of the father listed on 1464. It appears to be the wrong birth record. The person who put this Laughlin into place on familysearch used this as their notes: http://freepages.rootsweb.com/~langolier/genealogy/Augusta_Washington/ps02/ps02_340.html

Something is not right in Belfast lol

Can someone take a look from Ireland that has better Irish connections or search. Because they are different FULL dates on the two. It is concerning me to mix the two together.. The source attached on family search has a totally different father and would like some help to merging these or not? It Appears they should be merged with Laughlin-181's birthdate because the other birth record is to a McLaughlin and a different father. Otherwise everything is correct. Thanks for any help with this merge or no merge. Appears yes and but using birth from the lower number Laughlin? Thanks

Family Search: https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/sources/9HPG-B2G

Answer 1

The birthdate is to a McLaughlin with a McLaughlin father. Not the father listed on both that is John Laughlin. So dates I think should be the date of the James-181 but another look thanks. They are merged with unmerged match for the time being. as all info up to the date seems correct. I hate when things like that happen lol

Answer 2

If they're both the same immigrant, they should be merged.

Generally, with immigrants, you have to lose all birth and parentage "information" (guesses) unless there are clues from the American end.

Just searching the European country of your choice (how do you know he was Irish?) for somebody with the same sort of name and age isn't really an option.  Too many people, too many missing records.

And if the same original wild guess is copied from tree to tree all over the internet, it's still only a wild guess.

Comments

When I see two "FULL" birthdates that are different, you got to stop and say hmm, so many johns and james etc..cousins and Scots with their naming conventions where John and James are both naming their children John and James from their dad and uncles lol now you have like 4 johns and james with just 2 generations or even more depending on how many sons they have!  Common names They could be Scottish well and are Scottish in Northern Ireland! . Full dates are usually when someone has a birth record.for a person, but some people put Christening dates as birth dates then you have two Johns with the same parents and as they both have different birthdays! So confusing and more search is needed. In this instance the birth record is not for James Laughlin but James Mc Laughlin with a different father. raises flags too! duh! Who where what is the mistake? I transcribed it here, but from my tree that someone added on to. So their notes are not mine.

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On the other hand, in this case, it seems we do have clues from the American end.  There's a diary.  This is the diarist

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Laughlin-1382

Seems reliable.  According to the diary, John sr arrived with 6 kids. Wife not mentioned.

Find a matching family in Ireland and you're home and dry.  Chances: not good.

Seems clear that no matching family in Ireland has actually turned up.

So people are in the process of creating a synthetic Irish family to fit the American data.

These things usually evolve.  They get more concrete and detailed over time.

On WikiTree, John sr's father is also an immigrant.  But the source link doesn't work.

Unlikely that John sr married in 1735 and immigrated in 1740 with 6 kids.

Answer 3

I would be inclined to do much more research before merging these 2 profiles. The will suggests these may be 2 different people. Most notably is the reference to a son Alexander D Laughlin and then the appointment of his 'trusty friends' Alexander D Laughlin and Thomas McChesney as executors. I wonder how likely he was to have referred to a son this way. Also the list of children in the will suggests there may be some over-lapping of families.